Armageddon
by JMK758
Summary: Inspired by TOS episode 'A Taste of Armageddon'. Trip must prevent the destruction of 2 planets, but can he do it without betraying the one person he cares about most? Please Read & Review!
1. Disaster

Disclaimer: All rights to Star Trek Enterprise, the characters and situations except as noted below are reserved by Paramount Studios.

Tia Anlor (Tee-ah Ahn'-lor) is my own creation.

This is the 14th story in this series, the others being 'Golden Girl'; 'A Few Words'; 'Glistni'; 'Small Time'; 'Acquisition'; 'What Do I Do Now?'; 'For Want of Kilyiis'; 'Daasii'; 'Noblesse Oblige'; 'Roses and Thorny'; 'Time and Again', 'House of Cards' and 'Starlight Maiden'. This story takes place almost three weeks later. Tia has been on the Enterprise for about six months. This continues the arc begun in 'Time and Again' and concludes in 'Luuru'.

Rating: PG

Armageddon

by: JMK758

Chapter One

Disaster

Captain Jonathan Archer entered the Mess Hall, looking forward to a relaxing dinner with his crew. Beside him, Commander Charles (Trip) Tucker was just finishing up a brief overview of the status of the Engineering section. "So, everything is ship shape and Bristol fashion." Archer stopped, looking askance at his friend.

"Bristol fashion?"

"Uh huh." Trip replied with a good-ol-boy grin.

"Someone's been into the history books again."

"Can't know where we're going without knowing where we've been."

Archer decided he could answer; and have the man, who was clearly in a good mood, go on, or turn and continue into the room. He opted for the latter, just knowing it would throw off his friend, hiding a smile as he did so.

Trip, having nothing left to do, followed.

They made their casual way around the dinnertime crowd, opting this evening not to use the inner Captain's mess. It was something Archer would avoid, and if he had his way he would have dismantled the smaller room months ago, expanding the usable space for the crew by at least another table. But every time he thought about doing so, something would come up to make the smaller room necessary.

Trip had long ago noticed that, over the past few months, people had chosen favorite spots. He could identify exactly where someone he wanted to find would be before he even entered the room. Such were people creatures of habit that he could find anyone unerringly. He knew, without looking, that off to his right, just under one of the observation ports, he would find Tia, along with Hoshi and Liz Cutler. Tia would be seated facing the port; she never tired of the view of the stars; Hoshi and Liz would be seated opposite and next to her respectively, Hoshi with her back to the port.

In fact, so certain was he of it that he closed his eyes briefly, turned right about 70 degrees, took seven steps, turned right another 50 degrees and opened his eyes.

The room was gone.

x

He was standing in a zone of featureless blue, but that blue, which circled him all about, was spotted with moving images of various sizes which floated carelessly about him. The images were moving, displaying live action scenes of events on planets, in space, on ships, everywhere, seemingly without rhyme or reason. "Hello, Commander," a pleasant voice greeted him from behind. He turned, astonished, staring in disbelief at the Starfleet Officer he'd last laid eyes on just before the man had 'died'. "Welcome."

"I'll be damned." Tucker admitted when he could find his voice. "Daniels."

The man was wearing a blue Starfleet uniform that looked so crisp and new it seemed to have just been woven, compared to Tucker's not-quite-as-new-blue one. He looked exactly as he did when he used to serve meals in the Captain's mess when he was posing as the ship's steward, before Silik had blown him to atoms. "What am I doing here?"

"Do you know where 'here' is?"

"I've a pretty good idea, from the Cap'n." He looked around at the various floating images that passed by at different levels and paces in the blueness. "This is where you watch the cosmos."

"Essentially accurate." Daniels admitted. "We've brought you here because we need you."

"You usually only deal with the Cap'n."

"This time that's not practical. This time, we feel you are the best one to assist us."

"Interesting." Tucker admitted, trying to put on his best poker face. He'd trusted, and pretty much didn't think overmuch about, Daniels as a steward. When he was revealed to be much more than that Tucker had been dubious, and then concerned. He was not particularly confident about the people Daniels represented and reported to. The entire Temporal Cold War business had left Tucker feeling pretty much like a powerless pawn in a game played by two Grand Masters who did not care what pieces got sacrificed as long as the game was won; or at least not lost.

But he had proven himself helpful to them, and the Captain did trust him. That alone went a long way.

A very long way.

"All right. What did you have in mind?"

x

Daniels gestured at one of the passing images. It quickly expanded and expanded until it took up the entirety of the area before them, life-like and full size, in living color and sound. It was night on a planet somewhere, they were looking at a low wall of rocks about a meter high, beyond which was a short space of perhaps a meter and a half to a sloping hill of rocks and stones. There were irregular flashes of light and devastating roars of nearby explosions. The sharp staccato bursts of gunfire could be heard all about, punctuated by explosions near and far, and flashes of light that turned night for an instant into day, but the light was harsh and garish, nothing like the steady glow of the stars above and the reflected light of three irregularly shaped moons.

Just as Trip had taken in this much, he was astonished to see Tia Anlor pop up from behind the rocks, wearing a Starfleet uniform. He took in that instant the look of absolute fury on her normally joyous face, that her hair, which normally fell in a golden cascade down her back well past her waist now barely reached her shoulders, and that her face and uniform were covered in a spray of red blood!

She raised a phase pistol at a point high to his right, and an intense beam of energy leapt from it to strike a point high up the hill. He did not see what she had aimed at, but there was a titanic explosion punctuated by a short shriek. The phase pistol was set on maximum, and had annihilated its target.

With a shriek of rage Tia leveled the weapon and fired past Trip, the image of the intense blue beam cutting off before it passed to Trip's right. She turned and fired another blast past his left side even before the light of the first explosion reached back for her, and an instant later there was a sharp but smaller explosive report and a hole suddenly appeared in Tia's chest, followed by a spray of golden blood.

Tia was rocked back by the impact, but raised the phase pistol again, getting off a burst before a second shot exploded behind Trip and another hole appeared in the middle of the girl's chest, opening a second horrible spray of blood.

"TIA!" Trip screamed uselessly, horrified as he watched, unable to take a step forward to help his beloved. She did not fall, firing the weapon again. The two shots, each fatal to a human, had missed her heart by nearly ten centimeters too high. The blood spread to cover her chest in a golden smear as she screamed something in Auran, firing again.

There was a long staccato burst from somewhere behind Trip that drowned out his scream as Tia's body was riddled by scores of bullets that drove her back step by step, golden blood seeming to explode from her body as she staggered, driven backward by the merciless force until she fell on the slope of the low hill.

Trip stared in horrified disbelief at her still body suffused in golden blood as she lay on the small slope of rocky hillside. Her eyes were open, staring unseeingly at the stars. Her face, framed by her now short golden locks, seemed amazingly peaceful. She no longer saw the flashes of harsh light nor heard the explosions that continued about them.

"TIA!" It was a woman's piercing scream far to his right, and when he looked he was astonished to see Hoshi and Travis crouching behind the wall about fifteen meters away, as if they had been making for the site when her death halted them. She raised her phase pistol over the wall. "You fucking bastards!" She screamed, firing wildly.

"Get Down!" Trip heard a furious yell from further to his right, turning along the panoramic scene to see Malcolm further back. Less than an instant later the smoke trail of a rocket terminated where Malcolm was covered, and that entire section of the wall disappeared in a titanic explosion.

When the dust cleared enough to see, there was absolutely nothing left where Malcolm had crouched but a deep crater, and when Trip looked back to his other friends he was horrified to see them lying dazed nearly three meters up the side of the rocky incline. They were both trying to get up, shaking themselves.

"Hoshi! Travis!" Trip yelled, unable to stop himself. "For God's sake – get to cover."

As if they could actually hear him, they both realized they were high above the level of protecting wall, completely exposed, and tried to get down the hill when long bursts of staccato fire caught them. Hoshi and Travis' bodies were riddled with hails of bullets, some raising clouds of pulverized rock about them. They convulsed to the merciless impacts of metal that pounded them, and when it ended a long moment later they lay still upon the hillside. The harsh glare of explosions near and far flashed their bodies into horrendous images of light and shadow, of blue and spreading red.

From further still along the right line of covering wall a phase beam launched bright against the night, and then again, and Trip's perspective changed to bring him closer to the surviving combatant, his viewpoint elevating until he could see over the wall from a terrible close vantage of barely feet, as if he stood upon the wall itself, looking down at the hopeless scene.

Jonathan Archer lay face down in the dirt, his uniform soaked in blood from a line of wounds that had stitched across his back, covering his Science Officer in gore. Archer was not moving, then or ever again.

T'Pol fired again over the low wall; then loosed another burst into the darkness, followed by another. But then she stopped, looking at something to her right, beyond Archer's body along the length of the space created by the wall and hillside. She looked for several moments at whatever it was that had attracted her attention, and then her body relaxed of all the tension that had compressed it. She looked at the weapon in her hand, checking the remaining charge in the glare of flashing light. Then she sighed silently, opened her hand and let the phase pistol fall to the stones, and slowly rose from her crouched position.

She stood straight and tall, seemingly calm, so that only one who knew her could see the tension in her eyes. Those eyes moved from the thing that had held her attention to scan the field before her. Her eyes paused once, and again, and again, over and over as she looked about her. Trip did not count how many times she focused on something. There was no point. He had seen the charge level on the pistol before it fell.

She stood in the flashing glare of explosions, the roar of heavy weaponry and small arms fire, and gave those surrounding her her best look of Vulcan placidity and defiance. A moment later the massive roar began.

T'Pol was riddled with a hail of metal that perversely kept her upright in the opposing streams as her body seemed to erupt in green blood. A long moment was all it took, and when it was over she fell upon the still body of her Captain.

xx

Trip turned to Daniels, but found himself facing the Enterprise instead. There was another full size panoramic image blown up behind him, and in it the Enterprise NX-01, the pride and heart of Starfleet, hung in a firefight of its own, one it was badly losing. The starboard nacelle was gone, totally obliterated, and from dozens of ruptures in the hull atmosphere leaked and froze in white streams of ice and debris. The three phase cannons were still firing at the four ships that darted about it, but they were clearly firing on limited power and accomplishing absolutely nothing.

As he stared in shock one of the ships, badly damaged and leaking atmosphere and plasma, came up from below and struck the saucer section from underneath. There was a tremendous fiery explosion and when it burned out in the vacuum of space a huge chunk of the ship, from deflector back past the bridge was gone. It was as if some giant thing had taken a huge bite out of the saucer, and the mighty starship reared back, spun up and over, wildly turning out of control, presenting its stomach, tail and then upside down head to his perspective before there was a blinding flash of light.

Commander Charles Tucker III, Chief Engineer par excellence of the Enterprise, knew in his mind exactly what had happened as a miniature sun appeared in the cosmos, the mind shattering annihilation of tons of matter and anti-matter taking everything into an inferno hotter than the core of a star.

It was silent. It was brief. And when it was over there was nothing solid in the heavens to mark the grave of the Enterprise.


	2. Mission

Chapter Two

Mission

Trip stared at the sight, unable to think. He had not realized when the point had come when horror gave way to numbness, to a point where he was so completely overwhelmed that his mind stopped taking it in. He saw it, heard it, felt it and could not accept it for the truth it was. He looked at Daniels standing silently before him, waiting.

"I'll never live to see this day." He said hollowly, unable to even consider the rationality of the words, but Daniels nodded.

"Actually, you're right."

He touched an almost invisibly small control in his hand, and before them the planetary scene started to reverse quickly, T'Pol undying and putting up a brave fight, Hoshi and Travis unriddled with bullets on the hill, Malcolm unexploding; the images coming so fast it was only because Trip would never be able to expunge them from his memory that he could resolve them now as they flashed backward. Tia came back to life again, now only covered in a spray of red blood, unfiring several shots including one on the hill high above before ducking behind the wall. The scene continued through dozens of bright searing flashes, and several brief glimpses of Tia again rising just high enough to point her pistol and fire over and over before the glaring lights stopped their mad strobing and the perspective changed slightly, this time as if Trip stood on the wall looking down into the 'safe' passage.

This time, when sight and sound resumed their normal passage, he saw himself with Tia. He was kneeling, working frantically on a silver cylindrical device about 30 centimeters tall, set upon a silver base studded with controls. There was a roar of an explosion and flash of blinding light. "Almost got it, honey."

Tia popped her head up enough to take a few fast shots, and then ducked back in time to avoid answering fire. "Keep your head down." He ordered her.

"Is all right am I." Tia assured him, brushing her now short hair from her eyes. "Is I am to this 'old hat'." He looked over his shoulder at her.

"Good to know I've an experienced 'Resistance Fighter' at my back." He grinned. "Now aren't you glad you came out of the closet?"

She shook her head, popping up briefly to take another fast pair of shots. "Know what you say not, but rather would I under the bed be!"

"Almost there, honey. Ring up the others, tell them its time to blow this popsicle stand." She looked back at him, mystified, but he grinned at her again. "Just do it, they'll know." He turned back to the silver device, and an instant later there was a loud crack high up above them and a hole appeared in the back of Trip's head.

Tia froze in horror as she was sprayed with a wash of red blood and Trip Tucker collapsed over the device he'd been working on.

She stared at his motionless body, unable to believe what she saw, nor the feel of warm red blood the covered her. Flashes of glaring light strobbed about her, but she saw none of it. She shrieked his name, a soul rending cry of agony. He did not move.

She felt the phase pistol still in her hand now covered with warm red blood, and something in her gave way. She pressed the power control on the device, trying to ignore the blood dripping from it, turned the control to maximum and stood up, aiming at the point high above. The beam leapt from the pistol and everything stopped.

Trip Tucker stared at the image of his beloved, trying to ignore that of his own dead body, but what he saw in her eyes was worse. "Turn it off, Daniels." The image remained. He whirled around, furiously. "I said '_turn it off_'."

A moment later, only the featureless blue that he saw when he arrived was left. Even the multitude of … screens(?) … was off. Only the two men remained.

"What was that?" Trip asked when he was sure he could keep his voice steady. "Where? When?"

"We're not sure."

"What?" He'd meant to yell, but could only whisper it instead.

"History, true history, does not record the deaths of the Enterprise crew or the destruction of the ship. It doesn't even record the war you seem to have found yourselves in the middle of."

"What does it record?"

"This."

And he was back in the Mess Hall.

---

"Yes, Commander?" Elizabeth Cutler asked from her seat at the table before him. Both she and Hoshi Sato were looking up at him, curious. He'd just come up to their table, eyes closed in a personal 'experiment' a moment before. He looked at them, disoriented, shaken, feeling a fine trembling as he 'recovered' from watching the deaths of his friends, his mind still in a chaotic jumble through which he could sort only one thing. They were alone, and he realized they should not have been. "Where's Tia?" He was not surprised at how much his voice shook.

Liz and Hoshi exchanged looks, and each smiled. When she looked up at Trip, Liz was still smiling, a teasing expression on her face. "That's a surprise, Commander."

Trip felt as if he was watching himself do the unthinkable. He would never have believed that an instant later he was bent over the table, his hard tightly gripping Liz's shoulder. "_Where's TIA_?"

Astounded, Liz tried to back away as all motion in the room came to a halt at Trip's impassioned demand. She couldn't pull away from the grip which clamped on her shoulder. "S-she's at the b-beauty parlor!"

"_Beauty_ parlor? We don't_ have _a beauty parlor!"

"Is there a problem here, Trip?" Archer was suddenly at his side, his firm voice almost cutting through. Almost.

"D-D-Dina Samuels, remember? You guys call her the 'barber'; to us she's the 'beautician'. She -." She was talking to air. Trip had actually _pushed_ Archer aside as he charged for the door.

The two Ensigns stared up at their Captain, none sure who was the more astounded.

xx

Trip Tucker dashed at breakneck speed down the corridors, ducking and weaving around crewmen who barely evaded him in time. Now that he knew where he was going, he knew he had to get there fast. Unfortunately, while it was on the same deck, it was all the way around the other side of the huge saucer, and he had to get there fast. He took the first right and charged across the diameter of the saucer.

Suddenly, a yell went up from behind him: "Alley Aye!" It was repeated in front of him as well and carried by crewmen in all directions and corridors; and the corridor in front of him, all corridors in fact, magically cleared, everyone pressing back against the bulkheads. It was then that he learned this below-decks codeword, which meant: 'If you see the Chief Engineer running, get the _bleep_ out of his way!'

He cut right at the appropriate concentric corridor, charging back toward the rear of the ship.

It had been true, what he'd said to Liz Cutler. Enterprise did not sport a 'barber shop' or 'beauty parlor'; but Ensign Dina Samuels from Life Sciences had some skills and practice, and a small room in which to work by appointment. Left to their own devices, the planners who designed the Enterprise had, fortunately, provided for rest room facilities other than in private quarters, but had done little on an extended voyage to keep half the crew from winding up like scruffy 'beatnicks' while the other half…

Fortunately, Dina had stepped in to volunteer to fill a rather significant and unfortunate gap, and the small room set aside for that purpose was just forty meters away; twenty; five – the door opened too slowly; he shoved it aside.

Tia was seated in the room's only chair facing a large mirror, a pale blue cloth draped over her, her golden hair behind her long enough to reach past the seat. Ensign Samuels stood behind her, raising a pair of sheers. "Stop!" Tucker strode in on the startled women and grabbed Tia's shoulders, literally dragging the astonished girl out of the seat as Samuels jumped back, shocked. "Don't you do it." He demanded, gripping her shoulders so tightly it hurt as he almost picked her up off the floor. "Don't you _ever_ get your hair cut."

"Daai! Nyasi! Cuura li kir!" ('Yes. Not. Promise I do.') She exclaimed, her voice trembling with fright. It was that flood of terror that stopped him.

Suddenly, as if a switch were thrown, he could see again, but what he saw filled him with shame. Tia was staring at him, eyes wide in mortal dread, while Samuels was still holding the sharp sheers, but this time held closed in a tight grip and ready for use if this maniac hurt the smaller girl. Ranks be damned; she'd stop the Commander and let Security sort it out later. "Qualsia. Quilwaz ri nyas!" ('Please. Hurt me not!) Tia begged in a small voice, unable to understand what had happened to turn her gentle lover into… "Qualsia, cuura li kir!" Her words, even in Auran, broke through on her pleading tone. (Please, promise I do.')

Trip eased his grip on her, letting Tia down to the floor as she continued promising, and he pulled the astonished girl into his arms. "Oh, Tia, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." She didn't know whether to pull away or not, but was afraid to try, standing very, very still in his arms. She could not conceive of fighting him, any more than she could ever have conceived before this moment of his manhandling her.

He looked past her to Samuels. "Don't worry, I'm not a maniac." She didn't look too convinced.

He let go of Tia, letting her back away. "I swear, I'm not crazy. I know I came on like a madman, but I'm not. I really do have a very good explanation for this."

"Good," came an annoyed voice from the open door. They all looked back to see Jonathan Archer framed in the doorway, "because I want to hear it."

---

Archer stared at his friend from his place by the mirror in the small room as the man's narrative wound to a close. The problem was that he believed every word of it. "I'm sorry I went off the deep end like that."

"I can understand, Trip, seeing all that happen and knowing there's a better than even chance of it coming true. Besides, I'm not the one you have to apologize to." He said pointedly, looking at the women.

"I am sorry." He assured them, looking more to Tia.

"Yes, well," Dina said, "I'm sorry I thought about poking your eye out." She looked at the sheers she'd forgotten she was still holding. "That's a hell of a thing. I guess I should thank you for saving my life as well. Whoever thought that getting a haircut or not would mean anything like this?" She looked at the two men, who each shook his head. "I knew it. Damnation!"

"That's just one insignificant aspect."

"I know, but you'll excuse me please if I get really pissed off for a minute or so? Last time there was a temporal incursion I got stabbed to death, and the next time I get blown to hell? What happens _next_?"

"You get pregnant." Trip told her with a deadpan expression.

"WHAT?" He waved her off.

"I'm just kidding; you haven't even gotten blown up yet."

"Great!" She slapped the sheers down on the table with a ringing report. "Just _farging_ great!"

"Ensign." Archer said warningly, but she turned on Trip.

"How can you sit there and make _jokes_?"

"It's called 'gallows humor', Dina. I just watched 6 people I care more than anything about get murdered, 7 if you count me, and everyone else get blown to bits. It's for when the alternative is to go nuts."

"I think I've _already_ gone nuts – and I'm not all that sure about _you_!"

"Ensign." There was far more ominous warning in Archer's tone this time.

"I'm _sorry_, sir, but doesn't it just piss you off? These … _people_ … they have no concern for us. They're just playing their little chess game, they don't give a _farg_ about us. They kill us, they bring us back, they kill us again, they bring us back, only to figure out how to kill us _again_! They don't care; they've _never_ cared. They just want to win, but there is no _farging_ winner, just _us_, the farging _losers_! And –."

"Are you through, Ensign?" She stopped, winding down, breathless. After a couple of deep breaths, she admitted,

"Yes, sir. I guess I am through." Her tone carried all her meanings, but he shook his head.

"No, Miss Samuels, you're just saying what the entire crew would say if they could."

"If they got pissed off enough, you mean."

"That too, I suppose. Miss Sam – Dina, I know how you feel, more than you expect. As Captain I would very much like to see this over, as Captain I should be in a position to do something about it for my crew, and as Captain I have to live with the fact that we don't have it in us to do a blessed thing about it. We're caught in something bigger than we are, bigger than we ever thought we could be in when we signed on for this mission. I know nerves are shot … and if it's what you want I'll approve a transfer, but –." He watched the woman's eyes grow harder than diamonds as she stepped up to him, and while her voice was very quiet it could have cut those diamonds.

"No, Sir. I am not a _runner_! I'll stand up to them; I'll kick them in the _balls_ if I get the chance. But I do … not … run!"

"In that case, I'm glad you're with us. And if I can arrange it I'll see you get that chance."

"Thank you, Sir!"


	3. Preparation for Disaster

Chapter Three

Preparation for Disaster

"Well, you now know everything we do." Captain Archer concluded his briefing to his Command crew about the Situation Board at the rear of the bridge. Gathered with him were, on his right, Tucker, Reed and Sato, on his left T'Pol, Mayweather and, for the first time, Anlor. He had gathered together the 'late' members of the ill-fated landing party, in hopes of avoiding just such a fate as Tucker had witnessed. "Tactical assessments?"

Reed did not quite 'hmrmp', but it was explicit in his tone. "Tactical assessment? We are pinned down, separated into four groups and spread out by almost seventy meters, in a pitched nighttime battle with poor visibility, crouched behind inadequate cover with no means of retreat, facing an enemy with if not superior firepower then with the advantage of numbers, who can flank us from above and pick us off like ducks in a pond. Our commander is dead, the ship is under attack without its Tactical Officer or Pilot aboard, to say nothing of any other experienced command officer. The entire command crew was on the planet in a clearly hostile situation. Our _tactical_ situation is … 'inadequate'."

"I take it you would not have been the one planning this defense?" Archer asked mildly.

"I should say not, sir."

"All right. Important safety point: If you are in a ground battle and you see a meter high wall, don't get behind it."

Tia turned to Tucker. "Shar-les, is another example of 'gallows humor' this?"

"I'm afraid so, Miss Anlor." Archer answered, allowing the minor, unimportant breach of protocol. "Trip, do you know what device you were working on?"

"Sorry, Cap'n, I've never seen it before. But its clear we couldn't leave until it was in working order. But whether or not it was going to get us out of there or do something else, I have no idea."

"Were you given any indication about time-frame?"

"No. Everybody looked as they do now, with one small exception of Tia's hair, but all I can tell from that is that it was sometime after about an hour ago." She looked up at him, embarrassed.

"Surprise you I was going to." Trip held up his hand, waving the thought off.

"Later." He looked at the group. "It was a world with three moons then visible in the night sky, though there may have been more natural satellites. I didn't recognize any star patterns – I didn't look. I'll try to find some correlation in the database on the shapes of the moons, none of them were spherical."

"What about the weapons?"

"Projectile weapons, no coherent energy beams. Small arms fire, some that sounded like rifles, some machine guns, at least one rocket. Considerable yield to that explosion."

"And the ships that attacked Enterprise?"

"I didn't get much on that, didn't see any fire. But there was considerable damage to our hull that didn't look like missile fire. The ship that finally took us out crashed into us."

"What was that, Miss Anlor?" The young woman had muttered something too softly for Archer to hear. She looked up at him, embarrassed at having interrupted.

"Anston, nothing meant by…"

"This is an open forum for ideas. If you have something to contribute, let's hear it."

"Umm, thinking about the moons I was. "'Spherical' nyas, Shar-les did say. Perhaps could 'fragments' they be?"

"Trip?" They could see the strain reflected in his face as he tried to summon up the image compiled in a glimpse and mentally 'put the pieces together'.

"It's possible. I can't be sure, but it might be."

"Check on it." Archer ordered T'Pol. If this clue were accurate, it would go a long way to not only identifying the world but the time, and maybe more. "Anything more on the ships?"

"At least one capital ship; three smaller. The capital ship was at point, the others flanking us. The ship that took us out came from the nadir, and looked to be the same class as the two smaller ones. I couldn't recognize the markings."

"Put what you can into a data search. We might get lucky."

"Captain," Reed spoke up, "I'm concerned about the circumstances that would have so many of the Command Crew on the planet at the same time. I know we did it on Beta Aragon 3 and frankly I was not happy then about it either, even though we were on a diplomatic mission."

"Perhaps we are again, and hostilities don't break out until we are there." Travis conjectured.

"Perhaps. But something doesn't feel right, and I can't quite put my finger on what. But it keeps coming back to 'why.' If there were danger, I would have raised holy hell about so many of us being away from the ship, and I cannot believe you would ignore my objections. If we assume it was not hazardous, what would have the Captain, First Officer, Chief Engineer, Tactical Officer, Communications Officer, Pilot and a Junior Biologist down there at once?" He turned to Tia. "Or were you there as a 'Resistance Fighter'?" She looked at him, mystified.

"I do know not."

"You did seem to be 'guarding his back' as he worked." She looked around the group, clearly lost for an answer.

"We can keep second guessing ourselves all morning." Archer concluded, cutting off the train. "The fact is, we were there, and we have to prevent –."

"Captain?" The relief Com officer called from the main bridge. "We're getting a distress signal. Ship in trouble, trying to make planet fall. Heavy interference on the channel."

At a nod from the Captain, the conference broke up, the officers resuming their duty stations with alacrity. Tia, having no duty station, backed into the rear corner of the 'Situation Room' as Ann Anderson resumed her place with a friendly nod to the Auran, who tried to make herself as invisible as possible. Hoshi resumed her station and tried to bring in the signal more clearly as the others did what they could to prepare the ship for whatever aid it could render.

No one on the bridge seemed surprised at this development. After all they had learned, it seemed quite inevitable.

"Coordinates coming in." Hoshi reported. "Relaying to helm."

"Travis, warp 4.75. Let's go."

---

As the mighty starship flashed through the heavens at its top safe speed, the fragments of information started coming in. The frigate '_SS Heart of Glory_' had sustained as yet unidentified damage and the crew was trying to bring it in for a safe, or at least not catastrophic, landing on a Minshara-class planet, the eighth of the Eminiar system, which T'Pol's records identified as an unexplored world designated 'Vendikar'.

At the Enterprise's fastest safe speed, it was 19 hours away.

When Captain Archer heard that final assessment, something in the pit of his stomach clenched. The Enterprise was pushing itself to its limit; but space was so vast that even if he had ordered the ship to push beyond the safety constraints of the engines it would not make that significant a difference, not if the ship arrived unable to render any aid at all due to structural and engine damage. And yet, whatever was happening to the crew of the 'Heart of Glory', they were on their own for the better part of a solar day.

And while the damage to the ship was still unspecified – Archer concluding that the Com Officer was busily engaged in whatever could be done to bring the ship down safely if he were not already dead – he was morally certain that ship and crew were going down into a war zone.

"Captain, I'm receiving an automated signal now." Hoshi reported. A few moments later, she turned in her seat to face her Captain, her voice the grimmest he'd ever heard it. "It's the ship's disaster beacon."

Archer closed his eyes and concentrated on taking steady breaths, thought about not thinking. "Maintain course and speed." He said into the blackness.

"Aye, sir." Travis' voice came back to him.

--

'Disaster beacon.' Those words were perhaps the most ominous in a space farer's lexicon. A ship could be in distress, could be catastrophically damaged, could be putting out an appeal for aid; those were all one gross level of distress. The disaster beacon was a thing unto itself. Composed of the most obdurate metals known to science, screened and protected with its own shields, it was intended to survive anything short of a matter-antimatter explosion. It contained all the logs of the ship, all sensor readings, and could be ordered launched as the last desperate resort of a commander in a hopeless situation, or be left 'behind' when the ship was no more.

It sent out an automatic signal of a particularly poignant variety. It was meant to be found. It contained every record of the starship that surrounded it. The signal had no words; it didn't need them. To every space faring man or woman, its message was clear. 'Here I am, and here is what destroyed my ship.'

--

Archer took a carefully silent, deep breath, and let it out slowly and as quietly, opening his eyes. It would not do for the crew to see their commander rattled, so they would not. He had ordered the continuation of their rescue flight on the admittedly slim hope that there was something to save, but personally he held no such firm hope. He himself did not believe he would ever order the premature jettisoning of the Enterprise's beacon, and he doubted the other commander would. He believed that when his own time came, and that of his ship, he would be too busy fighting for the lives of her crew to even think about that device. Whatever happened, he could hope the ship's final record would survive, to tell the story of the brave men and women who served that ship, but he would never deploy that beacon. He did not believe he was alone. He turned to Hoshi.

"Send the download code. Analyze the signals from that beacon." He ordered his officers in general. "Be ready with your reports in one hour."

He got up out of his seat and crossed the bridge to his ready room. The door shushing shut behind him did not do anything at all for him. He had to think, and to come to a decision.

Lips pressed tightly together, he stopped, seeing the man who stood beside his desk. Well it was that he was so restrained, as it gave him a few moments before he trusted himself to speak. When he did, his tone was quiet and intense.

"_Damn_ you!"


	4. Answers and Declarations

Chapter Four

Answers and Declarations

"I know how you feel, Captain." Former-crewman Daniels told him.

"Do you indeed? I doubt it." He changed his mind. "No, I take that back, I do believe you. But tell me something, did you know about the 'Heart of Glory'?"

"That wasn't supposed to happen."

"You know, you say that an awful lot. And just how am I supposed to know that? And how am I supposed to react? Tell me that!" He forcibly stopped himself, lest his blood boil. He took a deep breath, sounding if not feeling more controlled. "The 'Heart of Glory' is gone, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is. With a crew of 47 persons."

"So now knowing that, and knowing; thanks to you; what I and my crew and my ship are getting into, I am completely justified in stopping us here and now. I'd do it, too. I was an hour away from receiving the conclusive proof you just handed me. Hopeless rescue missions that can 'potentially' mean the lives of my crew I have full justification to walk away from. And now you're here to convince me not to."

"That's right."

"You know, you are so lucky that starship commanders don't solve their problems with their fists."

"Well, future 'Enterprise' commanders might see things differently, but for now-."

"For now you are trying to get me to risk my crew. Why?"

"I told you. This incident with the 'Heart of Glory', and the destruction of the 'Enterprise', they are not meant to happen."

"But they are happening. Why? And what is that thing that Trip is working on when he gets shot in the head?"

"I can't tell you."

"You know, that fist in your mouth is looking more and more appealing."

"But I can show you."

--

An instant later Archer was standing on a wall of piled stone, looking down into a long trench. Before him, frozen in time and illuminated by the bright glare of an aerial explosion, Trip Tucker worked on a cylindrical silver object set upon a rectangular base studded with a multitude of controls. There was a small shovel beside a hole in the ground, obviously the source of the unknown device. Beside him, Tia Anlor crouched, phase pistol in hand and looking just as Trip had described her. He looked to his right, seeing Hoshi and Travis crouching meters away, just breaking away from Reed to move closer to the others. Beyond Reed's soon-to-be-fatal position, about another twenty meters, he could make out T'Pol's body crouched over another figure in blue, this last laying face down on the ground.

He looked over the scene. It was a long trench, looking a lot like a makeshift canal for directing rainwater to a riverbed about five hundred meters away. Up the rocky slope of the hill, about 60 meters above and to his right, he could see the sniper so soon to end the life of his friend taking careful aim with a rifle. Reed was right; it was tactically atrocious. He looked back behind himself, and his spirit quailed at the sight of the forces arrayed against them. Reed had been understating the point; it was tactically hopeless.

"Do you recognize it?" Daniels asked from his position on the wall next to him.

"No." The man seemed satisfied with this, as if he were checking something.

"Which is why we initially chose Mister Tucker to be the one to spearhead this operation. That, Captain, is a temporal relay, at the moment non-functioning. It was buried here to monitor any possible temporal incursions. There is one on more worlds than I care to count. Its purpose is to alert us to any potential temporal incursions that factions involved in the cold war might cause. It failed in this case, and open hostilities of a kind not seen in this planetary system for centuries broke out.

"The conditions between this world Eminiar VIII or 'Vendikar', which is a colony world of its nearest neighbor, which actually goes by the unimaginative name of Eminiar VII, were to remain at a stable condition they had worked out for at least another century. Each planet presently possesses the capacity for total destruction of the other. It is only by maintaining the status quo that they worked out that they eventually reach the level of maturity that will allow them to reconcile their difficulties.

"Another faction of the Temporal Cold War discovered that they could operate undetected here, and set off open hostilities that, in three days time, will reduce both these planets to rubble, a fate more thorough than that which befell this planet's moon some four hundred years ago." He pointed up at the three widely spaced, irregularly shaped bodies in orbit above.

"So, you want Trip to go in there and fix the thing."

"Once restored to working order, the device emits a field that prevents our temporal transporters from functioning. The field propagates through sub-space to cover a system-wide area. It will essentially isolate the system from all sides in the conflict, allowing them to continue their affairs uninterrupted. Cooler heads will prevent the deployment of the devices that destroy both worlds."

"But you know what this device is, where it is, presumably how to fix it. Why not just appear there like you did in my Ready Room, fix it and be done? Why involve us?"

"Because of the Temporal Prime Directive that protects the Temporal Accords; that prevents our own Cold War from becoming a hot one that tears up and down all the time lines. We cannot take personal action in events under way, knowing as we do the results. We can skirt the issue by giving information, by advising, but we agents cannot take personal action."

"I see. So you sent Trip in."

"Yes. In a time-line that has since been negated by circumstances that occurred before it, we contacted you and gave you the complete story. But the attempt was not successful, as you saw. It was with considerable difficulty that I obtained permission to try again."

"So let me see if I have this straight. Everything Trip reported was real. We'd gone in before, all of this happened," he indicated with a sweeping gesture the harshly lit scene about them, "and everybody died."

"Yes. It was felt that showing Mr. Tucker what happened would prevent the same mistakes from happening again."

"I see. So you people know who, what, when, where and why but can do nothing personally."

"Yes."

"I see. So you sent us in, and we all died."

"Yes."

"I see. So you come in even earlier, prevent the first version of history but not far enough back to save the 'Heart of Glory', and send us in again."

"Yes."

"I see." And this time Archer did hit him.

--

Daniels stumbled back, tumbling over the edge of Archer's desk and knocking most of the contents, as well as himself, to the floor. The Temporal Agent was stunned for a moment, shaking his head to clear it as he looked up at Archer. "I've been waiting a long time to do that." Archer said tightly as his door slid open. Malcolm Reed, the closest one to the room, rushed in first to investigate the commotion, taking in at a glance his Captain and the crewman on the floor. "I've also got an officer in Bio just dying for an introduction."

As Reed bent to haul Daniels to his feet, the man looked up at Archer. "I'm sorry." He touched a button on the device in his hand, and Archer and Reed were alone in the room. On the floor where Daniels had lain was an ordinary black data disk.

Archer looked from his Security Chief to the other officers packed at the door. "Back to your stations. We've a job to do." As they started to withdraw, he continued; "All except you, Trip." He bent down, picking up the disk and handing it to the man. "You've got some studying to do." He looked at T'Pol. "ETA to the last known position of the 'Heart of Glory'?

"Eighteen hours, twenty three minutes."

---

Four hours later Trip Tucker turned off the viewscreen at his desk in his quarters, and sat back in the chair, closing his eyes. The schematics on the screen seemed to have imprinted themselves in his eyes; he could see them behind his closed lids, could trace the leads and circuits in his dreams. It was a complex system, though not beyond him to fix, even in a fire fight; and he was burning with resentment at the need to do so.

He leaned his head back, took a deep breath and in the nearly soundproofed privacy of his quarters gave vent to a fiery string of top-of-his-lungs expletives that would have blistered the hull even over Malcolm's polarization field. He exhausted his supply of choice English words and phrases, went on to Spanish and was just about to work his way through his limited supply of Russian expressions when he felt a warm touch on his right hand. He opened his eyes and almost jumped out of his skin when he saw the young blonde woman kneeling at his knee.

"_TIA_!"

"Rang I did, but hear me you would not." She said softly, contritely. He was so taken aback, so startled, that he did not know what to say. Of course, she had admission to his room, always, but he …

He looked down at the young woman kneeling beside him; her hands still on the back of his right one, and found he was no longer angry. She looked up at him, her golden eyes so deep he wished he could get lost in them. He covered her hands with his other.

"What shouting you were?"

"Never mind, it's not important." He stood up, bringing her to her feet. At 5'3", she barely came up to the level of his chin, and had taken to wearing high heeled shoes she had initially borrowed from Hoshi, red to go with her usual selections of either red dresses or at least red blouse and skirt; or other combinations of colors at least having one item of her favorite color mingled in. Now she wore a pink blouse and red skirt, the higher shoes giving her an additional three inches. In this way, they could be more eye-to-eye, or in contact in another way, without straining. The extra three inches still left her almost six inches shorter than he, but they helped. "So, to what do I owe this surprise?"

"You to the planet going are." She said definitely.

"Yes. I'm not sure how I'm going to accomplish this, especially when I failed so miserably the last time, but the populations of two planets ride on it." He turned away, feeling the need to pace, but her words stopped him.

"I with you going am." She said even more definitely. He turned back to her.

"No." His answer was just as final. At least, he had intended it to be.

"Shar-les, I can stay not. I help can. Described to me you did, all too well, what happened. Protect you I can. Otherwise, if not there, then here I die when explode the Enterprise does. But know I protect you how to. Know what missed last time I did; will watchful be."

"Tia, we're not going to be doing it the way I described. I was shown that cock-up just so we don't make the same mistakes again. This time, I'm going in alone, with two guards and a transporter lock. We go in, I fix it, we come out and Malcolm and Travis control the Enterprise against those ships. We're not going to lose, either on the surface or in space."

"Might work not." He turned away, frustrated, stalking away from her. He did not want to have this argument.

"Then it looks like we'll just do the whole damn thing again." He turned back to face her. "But there is _no way_ I am going to risk your life on this mission. I'm bringing in two of Malcolm's best shots." She stepped right up to him, preventing him from evading her.

"And me!"

"Tia –." He forcibly stopped himself. It was a few moments before he could continue with a more steady voice, looking down into her expressive golden eyes. "Tia, I saw you _die_. You lost your head when I got killed, and you died. I will _not_ have that happen again. You're safer aboard Enterprise."

"Am safer nyasi!"

"Tia –."

"Shar-les, I all day have had to of you dead think. Know I that if die you do, then die _I_ do. Live I do want _nyasi_ if die you do." She took his hand, pressing it to her body, low down by the base of her lungs where he could feel the pounding rhythm of her heart. It had been its placement so low in her body that had briefly spared her life the last time; though in the end that reprieve had meant nothing. But now it pounded forcefully with her fiery passion.

"Shar-les, know I now that your life without, then nyasura … _nothing_ my life is!" She looked pleadingly into his eyes, wishing she could communicate her feeling to him. "You mrunion Alirki ne Avinyaan are!" She exclaimed.

"What does that mean?" She hesitated, then shook her head.

"Shall tell you not. Too wedsa, too 'private', even for you. But such you are. And stand _beside_ you I will. If live, live together we will. If die, die together we will."

"And if I survive, but you die?" He asked, satisfied as she was silenced, but it was all too brief as she looked up at him, fire in her golden eyes.

"For mrunion Alirki ne Avinyaan, nyasura there better is." He looked into her eyes for a long moment, finding in there all the determination, and all the love, in his world. For a long moment his voice failed him, and then only in love could he find it again.

"Tia, I love you will all my heart." He took a deep breath to steady his voice. "I've come to know that you are everything to me. When I saw what happened to you, I realized I already knew that I could not bear to live without you."

"Nor I you without. You my kilrisau are." At his questioning look, she stepped closer, as close as they could get. "Kilris 'life' is. Kilrisau everything that makes life, makes worth living it, is." He stared down into her golden eyes for a long time, feeling a thousand things that might tear his own heart apart if he let them. Finally, in a quiet, barely steady voice, he told her:

"Get plenty of rest, and make sure you get a good phase pistol. We beam down at 0730."

For a long moment she did not move, but then raised his hand, pressing her lips to his wrist, several breaths tickling along his flesh. Then, not enough, she came up on her toes, her arms about his neck as she kissed him. It wasn't an Auran gesture, and he knew that to her there was no sensation such as a human would feel, but she held the kiss nonetheless. When it broke a long time later, and she came down again, they were both breathless.

"Li vantis cuvilir."

"I love you too. Remember, 0730."

"Daai." A moment later she was gone, and he was staring at the door, the sight of her pixie-ish face still fresh in his eyes. The more he thought of how much he loved her, and how deeply, how unreservedly she loved him, the more his spirits plummeted.

He tried to push it off, but it would not go. With a sigh, he started to strip off his uniform, needing to get some rest before his 0500 beamdown.


	5. Betrayal

Chapter Five

Betrayal

Just as the door to Trip's quarters closed behind her, Tia was surprised to almost collide with Lt. Reed, who was just approaching the door. "Ah, Tia, I had the feeling I'd find you here."

"Daai?" She was even more surprised. She could not imagine what the man wanted that he would come to Shar-les' quarters for.

"You were part of the initial landing party in the … other history." He concluded, still uncomfortable with the concept of varying time lines. "It occurs to me that you've never been checked out on our weaponry. I want to make sure you understand their use if you are going into combat." She considered the point briefly.

"Is that it wise is." She admitted.

"Come this way." He escorted her to the armory on F deck, one deck below, where among other things he had a testing program established for use in target practice with the phase pistols. When they entered the reinforced chamber, he took her to the weapons locker and removed a pistol, showing her how to open and insert a charge. "The extras you'll keep in a pocket in your uniform. Don't worry; they are perfectly safe until engaged in the chamber." He closed the top, handing the weapon to her. She hefted it a few times, getting the feel of its weight and balance. "Have you ever used anything like this?"

"It similar seems to the aks tui va forsuunt."

"To the what?"

She looked up at him with a wry smile. "Anston, Lieutenant. Know I what letters aks tui va would translate in your wernneuo to, er, alphabet to not. Auran thirty seven letters has. But forsuunt would to you be 'thirteen'. The aks tui va forsuunt a … 'coherent energy weapon' is. I think you might say 'duo-phasic'. It …" She described with her hand over the barrel of the phase pistol a device slimmer, longer and lower in the hand than the model she held, but one with two slim parallel barrels. "It two beams uses. Effect combines when the target it hits. Er, how can I … 'disrupts' the cell structure it does. Negates the bonding force that keeps the molecules touching one another it does. Secret it is, for use in long range only. Fire we do, then hide quickly."

"I think I understand. By the time anyone gets close enough to find out where the beam originated from, you're all long gone."

"Can knock from the sky a ship at forty valyris."

"I'd like to get hold of one of those babies." He said, impressed. If he understood, that was considerably further than a phase pistol's range. She shook her head.

"Would you want it not. This" She hefted the phase pistol, "can do what that can not."

"What's that?"

"Stun."

-

On that ominous note they begin the testing. "You'll have ten shots on the first level. The target drone will record simulated hits for the computer." At that moment, a small silver holographic sphere appeared and started moving about the room on an erratic course. Tia took careful aim with her arm fully extended and tried to track the movement, but it was moving so fast she could not 'catch' it to fire. For several long moments she tried to keep up, to anticipate the drone's position, but it was never where she expected it to be when she was ready to fire. She did not want to waste a shot, but she could barely keep up with tracking it. After over a minute, Reed pressed a button on the control, and the drone stopped in mid-air. "What's wrong?" She turned to face him, frustrated.

"Too fast it is. Can lead it not." She was frustrated, more so because she realized how close she was coming to being excluded from the landing party and the chance to protect her beloved. "At forty valyris a ship at a hundred valyris moving seems crawl to." Reed adjusted the control in his hand, deciding now would be a good time to test another feature he'd recently added to the program. He directed her attention back to the drone, making her turn to face it.

"Stop thinking of it as a distant Silurian ship. Your ground targets are going to be moving fast, you have to be ready for them." The drone darted to the left. She fired at where she thought it would go and when it veered off she missed by more than two meters. "There's an old adage: Stop trying to hit it and hit it." She cursed softly as she heard the computer count the mark against her. Rather than at the full extension she had been trained to use against distant targets; the only type the resistance was permitted to fire upon, she drew back her arm, trying to focus on where the fast moving drone would be. The drone turned and cut across directly in front of her at barely a meter away, and unexpectedly an electric charge erupted from it, striking her right breast. She yelped, nearly dropping the pistol, and whirled on Malcolm, covering her stinging breast with her left hand.

"_Lieutenant Reed!_" She exclaimed, outraged.

"I don't program the targets, but I suggest you pay attention." An instant later she heard a _shrack_ and jumped with a yelp as a charge shocked her shapely posterior. She whirled and the beam from her pistol hit the drone dead center. Again and again she fired, hitting the fast moving, wildly evading drone nine times in less than that many seconds. At the tenth shot, the drone vanished.

"Not bad at all." Reed said. "Ninety percent. I think you'd have made a hundred if you hadn't been 'aiming'." She couldn't think of a thing to say, so monumentally outraged was she still at what he had done. Or at least what she perceived he had done. "Well, I think you're ready for tomorrow." He continued, ignoring her expression. "Take the pistol with you, and get some rest. You've only got about six hours. 0500 comes sooner than you think." He started to step past her, but the shock she had from the hits she had taken were nothing compared to that which assailed her at his last words.

"De stal?" She asked, making him turn back.

"I beg your pardon?"

"'What did you say'?"

"I said you've only got about six hours to rest. 0500 comes sooner than you think. It's … it's an earth expression."

"Sooner than I think." She whispered, shaken. "Sooner than I think." She started walking past him. "Sooner than I think." She whispered.

"Tia, are you all right?" She stopped, turning to him but seemed to look right through him.

"Nyas." She whispered, shaking her head. "Li eda nyasi." She turned away, walking out the door, feeling an ache low in her chest as if she had been kicked in the heart.

-

She returned to her quarters, still badly shaken. How could he _do_ this to her? Why? How?

Unable to rest, she paced the room back and forth, having no answers. She stopped, thinking that if she could clear her mind, she could think better. Her heart was so wounded with betrayal that she could not bear it. She knew that, when she got like this, only one solution would help.

Removing her pink blouse and red skirt, and all other clothing, she draped everything in turn carelessly over the back of her desk chair and, crossing the room, opened a drawer of her dresser. From within she very carefully took a short robe that she had lovingly fashioned not long after her arrival, copying to the best of her ability the one she'd worn at home, now lost so far behind her. She handled the short red robe reverently, carefully, as if it were the original.

She put it on, the light material extending just barely past her hips, and ran her fingertip lightly over the flowing script sewn into the cuffs of each sleeve, thinking the words her fingertip traced. The language was ancient, so old she did not know when it had fallen into disuse, but the words were burned into her memory from long years of practice.

Cinching the belt, she went to the door and locked it, also engaging a secondary, private locking code, one Security did not have, remembering the time five months ago when Hoshi Sato, all unknowingly, had intruded upon her privacy. She'd created the second set of lock codes to make certain that would never happen again.

Going to the center of the room, she knelt down on the deck and took a deep, calming breath, relaxing her posture, allowing herself to settle back on her own legs, back bent slightly, head down. Her long golden hair fell forward to curtain her face, reaching down so the ends rested on the floor.

Under the partial curtain of her hair, she raised her hands to her head. With her first fingers she closed her ears, her second and third fingers pressed lightly to the pulse points at her temples, her smallest fingers lightly pressed upon the lids of her eyes, keeping them closed while her thumbs touched across her lips. Thus deaf, blind and dumb, aware only of the beating of her heart thumping low in her torso, her breathing was quite loud. She concentrated on quieting her breath, her respiration growing shallower and quieter until she could no longer hear anything but her heart thumping to the rhythm repeated under her fingertips. Then she opened herself up to Aura.

For many long minutes as her breath threatened to become audible she fought for calm, concentrated only on hearing her heart, concentrated on Aura. Finally, after an agonizingly long time, she began to see it. Actually, the sphere she saw in the darkness was what she recognized as her interpretation of Aura. No one had ever actually seen Aura, at least no one she had ever heard of, but this visualization was it to her.

But red it was, violent and incandescent, chaotic and tumultuous as her soul, not the placid blue she knew, the one she wanted most to see, the one she needed to see.

Her breath quickened for a moment, intruding, and she fought it down, fought for calmness. She tried to take the scarlet sphere, filled with fiery incandescence, and turn it a placid blue. She had to be calm; she could not commune in its present state. She could not even begin.

The luuru was upon her. She couldn't deny it any longer. She could fight it for a while longer, but in the end she would lose. It would have its way with her and claim her and take her to that place she could not avoid.

For many long minutes she tried for calm, to clear her visualization so she could meditate, but every time she started to gain headway in one area, to see shades of blue against the fiery red chaos, the scarlet overwhelmed her efforts and reclaimed her hard-won calm.

Again and again, as the minutes passed unheeded, she tried. But each time she started to gain a victory she was overcome and, like a virus that could not be contained, the chaos overwhelmed her. The chaos of the luuru was taking her. She could feel it inside herself, and knew she could not keep it from her much longer. Eventually, she would have to give in. She was afraid, and tried to put the fear behind her, but it would not go. No matter how afraid she was, there was nothing she could do. It would take her, and she did not know what would happen to her. Part of her was elated, part anticipated it, and part was terrified; and much as she wanted to, she could not shake the terror.

She had no sense of time, no sense of anything outside herself. Blind, deaf and dumb, hearing only her heartbeat as she forced her breath to remain silent; a much harder task than it should have been; she tried for calm, for peace, for – how could he _do_ this to her?

No! She tried to push the feeling, the anger and outrage, aside as flame burned through her blue calmness, destroying her efforts and hard-won success. She had had almost half of the sphere converted, and now only a tiny piece was hers. She had almost been at the point where she could begin her meditation. Without the calm the blue represented in her visualization, her soul was so chaotic she could not meet with it, could not commune.

She started over with renewed, enforced calm. She concentrated on her joy here, on her delight at the thousand discoveries that greeted her each day, the delight of the friendships she had made, and slowly, with agonizing slowness over long minutes, the sphere became more and more placid, more blue winning over as she thought of her love discovered here, of her joy, of her peace. She thought of Hoshi and their friendship, of Liz and their long late night talks as the woman interpreted a universe of mysteries in dealing with humans. She thought of Shar-les and their love, of the joys they shared together, of their **_how could he _lie_ to her like that_**?

Incendiary rage reignited the fire and it flared out of control, searing through Aura and burning everything out in a scarlet inferno! No, it can not be! She can not lose it now! She _needed_ to meditate, to find her feelings and her soul, and she could not do it with this chaos. She almost sobbed in frustration, but forced it down violently. Calm! Peace! Love! Calm! She had to find calm! Calm! Joy! Calm!

She couldn't fight it. The chaos of luuru was upon her, as it came in time to all of her race, and no amount of meditation could hold it back much longer. But now was not the time! It could have her later. It could take her later. Later. Later!

Gradually, oh so slowly, so agonizingly slowly she found that small piece of calm near her heart, and worked to expand it. She worked to direct it to the sphere, to use it to envelop the flames, to smother them in peace. If she could not coax peace from within, she would smother the rage from without!

Slowly the flames began to die. Peace was beginning to win through – even though she had had to force its victory. Gradually more and more blue appeared in the sphere, minute after unheeded minute, winning more and more space and she began to feel more and more at peace within herself. It took less and less force; peace was winning. She felt the calmness suffuse her, relax her. Almost there. Her visualization of Aura was blue; placid. She was at peace with the universe as Aura was at peace with her inner cosmos. She was ready to begin. Finally!

Her shoulders were relaxed, and a while later her arms were relaxed. She felt the calmness, the peace, spread slowly, gradually, through her neck, through her back and chest. Slowly, oh so slowly it spread to her head and down to her hips. The tension in her legs would fade now, soon. Only the barest hint of red remained, only the smallest shadow, a barely discernable bit of foulness upon the smoothness. Soon it would be over.

Peace. She would be at peace. Calmness. She would regain her calm. Joy would be hers again. She would be happy again. She would be fulfilled and at peace with the world. She could relax and be at peace again and begin her healing meditation. She would be at peace for 0500. She _had_ to be _because 0730 was a **Fringatye LIE**_!

Aura burst into flame, consumed in the blinding fury of a red sun! So violent was the flare that she was rocked back on her heels, her hands flying from her face, her golden hair flying as she knelt gasping, the anger tightening every muscle in her body. She clenched her hands, trying desperately to hold back the rage that threatened to consume her. There was still time, she could begin again. She could still have time to touch Aura, if only she could first find the calm peace she needed. She needed to commune, to meditate, to overcome this … this anger! She couldn't commune without it, and she desperately _needed_ to before she could sleep! She had to. She had to rid herself of this anger!

Her eyes fell on the chronometer beside her bed: '0423' it said. She had been trying for over 5 hours! She clamped a hand over her mouth barely in time to smother herself, unable to restrain the shriek of murderous fury that tore through her!

When she could relax again, push aside the frustration and the anger, she found herself trembling. "Nyas!" She gasped, looking at her trembling hands. "(Ready am I not. Too soon for the luuru. Too soon! Ready am I not!)" She fought to get her body under control, almost giving way to sobs of frustration as it became harder and harder to do. She was weak, so weak that she could barely move, but the trembling in her body was going to overwhelm her.

She pushed herself up, trying not to stagger on bare feet as she almost fell into a small cabinet, pulling open the door and taking out a container, her hands shaking so badly she could barely get it open. She dropped the cap onto the floor, unable to hold it, and looked with utter revulsion into the container at the milky substance within. "Qualsia!" She begged Aura, barely sure she was being heard. "(Not yet! Not today! I am not ready! Please! Not today!)"

Raising the container to her trembling lips, she forced herself to drink the vile concoction, grimacing at the horrible taste as she forced herself to swallow more and more of the mixture. She groaned, trying not to gag, to relax and not fight as she forced herself to drain the container of every drop.

She fell to her knees, dropping the container on the floor, one hand clamped hard over her mouth, the other to her stomach, fighting the nausea, fighting to keep from being sick, fighting her body to keep it down lest she have to drink another full measure!

-

When Trip Tucker, leading two of Security's most reliable officers and most expert marksmen, approached the transporter alcove, he found the technician on duty all ready for him. "You have the coordinates?"

"To the millimeter. I'll set you down behind the wall, less than six inches before the place the device is buried."

"Good." He turned to the team behind him. "So far sensors are clear, but that won't last long, if what happened to the '_Heart of Glory_' is any indication." He once again addressed the transporter tech. "Keep a lock on us. If I let out a yell, I want us back aboard before the echo dies."

"Aye, sir."

"Let's get going." He turned and was about to step up into the alcove when he saw that it was already occupied. A young woman wearing the blue of Starfleet, her golden hair cascading down behind her, was leaning against the back wall.

"Dampris ilinta, Shar-les." She said softly.

"Good morning, Tia." He answered, trying to hide his thoughts, his feelings, and doing neither very well. "Ready to go?" She shook her head.

"Nyas, Shar-les." She said just as softly, coming off the wall and stepping slowly up to him in the small alcove. Standing in the slightly elevated alcove, she was of a height with him. "It only 0500 is. Beamdown 0730 is."

"Yes. Well –."

"Shar-les," She said lovingly, almost a sigh. She reached down and took his hand, pressing it low to her chest, where a human's diaphragm would rest, "my _heart_ to yours always is." She raised it up, pressing her lips to his wrist. "My _life_ to yours always is." She whispered. She let go of his hand, and pressed her hand to his cheek. "Li vantis cuvilir. _Forever_!" She leaned closer, kissing him, a long, deep, loving kiss. "Tuvi mrunion Alirki ne Avinyaan _seelna_ edalouu." She whispered in deepest love, her lips touching his. "You my Alirki ne Avinyaan _always_ shall be." She stepped a half step back, withdrawing her hand from his cheek, and _slapped_ him hard, the sharp crack echoing up and down the corridor!

"_Now_ is that I ready am!" She declared, stepping back into the alcove, waiting.

Trip did not look at either man beside him, and they very pointedly did not look their Commander in the eye nor at his reddening cheek as the three stepped up onto the transporter.

"Crouch down low, everybody." The transporter technician reminded them. "Remember, the barrier is barely a meter high."


	6. Eminiar

Chapter Six

Eminiar

"Archer to Trip." The intercom on the control panel spoke up just before the technician had started energizing the transporter.

"Just a moment." Trip directed, returning to the console and activating the intercom. "Tucker to the Bridge. How's things up there. Think you'll have much trouble avoiding those ships?"

"No." Archer's voice came back to him, sounding quite perturbed. "We'll have no problem avoiding all this _debris_."

"Come again?"

"I said 'debris'. From the looks of it, we're looking at an orbiting debris field where at least six ships have been obliterated."

Tucker was astounded; and the others were no less distressed by the news. "You don't say." He managed to say flatly.

"It all looks like it's happened in the past hour. If this was our welcoming committee, it looks like they've made themselves very unwelcome. Get down there and do what you have to do fast; I don't like the looks of any of this."

"No argument from me there." He returned to the platform, and the four arranged themselves for being obscured behind a one meter high wall. A few seconds later the transporter deposited them into darkness.

When they reoriented themselves, they found they were in a gully about a meter wide, at the base of a rocky hill. There was a slight but definite slope to the land. It was clear that the purpose of it was indeed to direct rainwater toward a tributary lost in the blackness beyond their vision. It was also dark and eerily quiet; far removed from how Trip remembered it.

The guards and Tia took up defensive positions, each of the men covering the length of the trench before and behind them while Tia scanned the hillside for the sniper she knew had to be there.

Trip broke out and reassembled the small shovel he carried, and then activated his tricorder, easily locking onto the readings of the device he sought. It was buried about a quarter meter into the ground not twenty centimeters before him. But just as he was about to pick up the shovel, one of the guards took a cautious look over the rim of the wall. He went motionless for several seconds. "Sweet Mother of God!" He whispered feelingly.

"What is it?" Trip demanded.

"Sir, I don't think these people are going to be much of a worry." Unable to stand it any longer, Trip cautiously picked his head up over the edge of the rocks, and the sight that greeted him in the dim light reflected from the shattered moon filled him with horror.

There were hundreds of people out there, perhaps thousands, stretching as far as their eyes could discern, but the guard was quite correct. They would not pose a threat to the landing party, then or ever.

Hundreds and hundreds of still bodies littered the field, stretching back beyond the limits of their sight. As far as the eye could see there was absolutely no movement whatsoever.

As he stared, unable to believe, to accept, what he was seeing, he heard a soft whispering and looked back, seeing Tia looking with them out at the battlefield, her golden eyes haunted. He did not understand the words she was whispering, but each of the men in his own way joined her.

-

As soon as they materialized in the Transporter alcove about twenty minutes later Trip and the first Security Guard turned in their phase pistols to the second guard, and he turned, seeing that Tia was gone. "Where's Tia?" He asked.

"She stalked off as soon as we materialized, looking mad enough to chew neutronium." The first guard reported.

"Huh, what's that about?"

"Search me."

He had no time to do that, however. His first desire was to get to the Bridge, to report all they had seen and done. Already the Enterprise was warping out of orbit, leaving the Eminiar system well behind. Trip decided he would leave it behind forever, and after he made his formal report to the Captain he would do all within his power to make himself forget that planet had ever existed!

He hoped he would not see former-Crewman Daniels again, either now or ever. He did not envy his friend's encounters with him, but for now he was going to try to wash the black event off his soul.

It took about an hour to cover everything. Apparently something had again been done to the time line, for they had clearly arrived after the events they had 'witnessed' 'before'. None of them tried to understand how this could be; for there had been no delay since the receiving of the distress signal. The only explanation that made sense was that it had not been that signal that had precipitated the events the first time. Perhaps Daniels had convinced them earlier.

Regardless of what the new sequence of events was, there was no way any of them were going to successfully second guess themselves; for that way led to self-torture and madness. They had accomplished their mission, and had saved – or so they supposed – Eminiars VII and VIII; that is if Daniels interpretation of the time line was to be believed. But too much thought of that was also the way to madness.

By the time Trip was done he decided that he was in no shape for going to Engineering; nor could he return to his quarters, knowing he could not possibly rest. He decided to go to the galley and not eat. Others would be eating; it was actually close to 0730, and he could find some friends to take his mind off the blackness. He entered the galley, seeing Alpha shift just finishing up their breakfasts.

His eyes went to a familiar table, but like yesterday morning only Ensigns Sato and Cutler are at their table. Hoshi caught his eye and glanced across the room to another observation port where he saw Tia standing. Uncommonly, she was still wearing her uniform, which she normally did not wear aboard ship. She was also, even more curiously, still armed, the phase pistol she never turned in looking incongruous on her right hip. She was standing looking out the port, and even across the room she was clearly tense and giving off such vibes of anger that no one was near her. 'Probably having a lot of flashbacks herself.' He thought, thinking about what she had told him of some of the horrors she had witnessed on her home planet. He hoped that a battlefield full of corpses was not one of them. He crossed the room, coming up behind her. "Tia?"

She focused on his reflection in the port. "Shar-les." Her tone is utterly flat.

"Are you okay?" He thought it was a cosmically stupid question, but it was a way to open the conversation. She did not turn, looking at him in the transparent aluminum port.

"Happy am I that safe you are – but kisnan … but speak to you I wish _nyas_!" Her voice grew tight with barely restrained anger. "Want I to alone be!" He reached up to touch her arm, but she slapped his hand away violently. "_Pilquis oi nyais_!" Her voice cut sharply enough for heads to turn all about the room as she demanded that he not touch her.

"Wha?" She whirled on him, fists clenched at her sides, and he was astonished to see the rage in her expression, the bright gold suffusing her face.

"Through _Ierilsnu_ did you on Caldis III put me for I did lie to you!" She cried furiously, silencing the entire room. "For days face no one I could because thought they knew I did. Shamed I was before everyone! Managed to bear it I did and then last night lie to _me_ _you_ did!"

He was astonished. He knew she was upset, his face had stung for quite some time from her hard slap, but he had thought she was reacting now to the sight of so many dead, from having worked in a 'graveyard', from having expected a pitched battle to seeing its aftermath instead. "I'm sorry. I was trying to protect you." He did not want to air their private affairs here in the open, but she was too furious to be convinced to come with him to a quiet place.

"Protect me!" She cried, enraged. "I 'protection' need not! Handle myself I can and endure my pain I can! I your _respect_ need do! Concerned you were that truth from me receive did you that through Ierilsnu you would put me; cared that tell I you truth or leave me you would – and then lie to _me_ you did!"

He looked about. People were trying to pretend they were ignoring this, studiously fixing on their food, but no one could possibly miss a word. He turned to her, whispering imploringly. "Tia, would you please … would you _qualsia_ lower your voice?"

"Nyas! If truth above all things you want, then truth above all things you _give_! Think you so little of me that –!"

"No! You're right and I'm wrong!" He whispered urgently, forcefully. "I shouldn't have done it, but I was trying to protect you!"

"So, for me to lie to _myself_ protect wrong was, but for _you_ to lie to protect me _right_ was!"

"Tia, I had to."

"You _Daakis_!" She screamed. Now Tucker stood a good nine inches taller than she did, and tipped the scales at about thirty-five pounds more, but her fist struck his jaw so hard he was catapulted through the air to land on a nearby table. It, four astonished crewmen and a collection of plates and cutlery crashed to the floor with him. Equally stunned and astounded, Trip looked up in time to see several crewmen converging on the enraged young Auran as she prepared to engage them.

"Everyone stand down – that's an order!" His voice cut through the noise in the room, halting everything. He knew that with her strength; surprising as it would be to anyone who did not know the differences in the slight girl; and her hand-to-hand fighting skills, someone could get seriously hurt. All eyes in the room turned to him as he became aware of warm moisture on his face. He raised his hand to his forehead and it came away red with blood from a gash he hadn't felt until he saw the blood.

Tia's expression transmuted from rage to horror as she saw him, and she cried out, rushing to him and falling to her knees beside him, grasping a cloth off the floor and pressing it to his forehead. "Anston! Oh, anston, Shar-les! Li mur kisrn hullsniu tei! Li gisnart edal! Li quilwaz lurin nyas! Na muri kwalstan tuov maakiire! Namente toudegras calandi qualsia! Anston! Anston, Li qualsia klistni! Kuval tiluranoews kilvienti zuro desgras!" She continued for a long time; he had no idea what she said as she tried to minister to him, right up until Phlox arrived in response to a call about injuries.

-

Phlox had just completed his work on Trip. The cut to his forehead had not been severe at all; it had bled copiously and had looked worse than it was, but it was a minor point indeed. Lt. Malcolm Reed approached the biobed just as Phlox stepped away. For a moment the two friends regarded each other silently, and then Reed shook his head. "If it had been anyone else who'd assaulted this ship's third-in-command, he or she would be in the brig. But I had the feeling you were not going to press charges."

"Where is she?"

"Out in the corridor, sounding pretty contrite. Care to tell me what that was all about?" Trip thought about it for a moment.

"A difference in ethics, I guess. I suppose you could say that what's good for the gander isn't good for the goose."

"Whatever that means. From the reports I took, it sounds like considerably more." There was an undertone in Reed's words that Trip did not really like.

"What aren't you saying?"

"Just this: I've been noticing, and others have, that something's going on. Now, your business between the two of you should stay there, and I would be the first to leave it there, but I think that this is just one aspect of a larger problem. I've been noticing that for the past few weeks our carefree, spritely biologist has been getting rather … moody."

Trip's first thought was to defend her, or put it off, but he finally had to admit "You're right. Ever since she heard about that other Auran ship out there, I think it's been eating at her a lot more than she'll admit."

"I'm not sure that's all of it, but I think that you need to sit her down and find out what's really eating at her. I can't have her going around beating up the ship's officers. It makes us look bad." There was an unspoken depth beyond Reed's ironic tone.

"I'll talk to her."

"You do that." He held out his hand to help his friend off that table, but instead of taking it in the normal manner he linked fingers at the second knuckles, curling the fingers of both his hand and Trip's into a strong grip. "Come on, secret handshake." He boosted Trip up to his feet by this grip. "Welcome to the club."

"Club? What club?"

"The club for those who've found out the hard way not to piss off your girlfriend!"

-

Tia had been waiting in the corridor outside the Infirmary for many long minutes while Dr. Phlox finished his work and Shar-les had met with Lt. Reed. But as she waited, nerves straining, she became more and more aware of the beating of her heart. All unnoticed, it had grown faster; something she had attributed to increased stress, but suddenly, with a growing ache in her elbows and knees, she realized she had been wrong. Atrociously wrong. In fact, the increased stress itself, and her outrageous behavior, had been the result of something else, something she had pushed so far back in her mind that its return came with chilling grip upon her pounding heart.

Turning away, she knew she could not wait. If what she believed to be so was true, she had little time. Hurrying down the corridor, ignoring the mounting pain in her joints, she put her hand to her head, feeling a very unwelcome heat. Normally her temperature was stable at 97 degrees, but she did not need a tricorder to know it was considerably higher.

She couldn't deny it any longer. The luuru was upon her, whether she felt ready or not was no longer for her to decide. It was going to come.

But there was still a chance to stave it off, if she hurried. Rushing down the corridors, making for the turbolift, she fought her body, fought the trembling and her increasing heart rate and heat. How she managed to get into the turbo, up a level and to her quarters without seeing anyone who would stop her she did not know, but it was with a sigh of great relief that she pushed the button, opening her door and sealing herself inside.

Her elbows and knees protested in pain at her movements, but she knew this was just the beginning. Soon the pain would spread to all her joints, then her muscles, and then grow steadily worse when her heart beat wildly out of control. She crossed the small room, pulling open a cabinet and taking out a medical travel pack she had surreptitiously obtained from the Infirmary, and the compound she had made in the laboratory when she was supposed to be doing a (failed) chemical analysis on some plant specimens.

She could now feel the heat of her body climbing, and pulled off the stopper of the ampoule, setting it into the hypospray unit. She pulled down the zipper of her uniform and pressed the hypo against her body just over her pounding heart.

At that instant her right leg cramped, all her muscles from ankle to knee clenching tightly and toppling her to the floor. She landed heavily, and in the distracting pain she was late in pulling the hypospray away. When she looked at the meter, squinting over the spasming muscles, she was horrified to discover that instead of the reading of 5 she had intended, the reading was up to 53! "Nyas!" She gasped. "(Too much! Too much!)"

She pushed herself up off the floor, but could not move her legs properly, so it took a long time for her to stand, her body trembling as she actually felt the drug flowing through her body. Her heart was slowing as she'd intended, but too much! Her metabolism was slowing, her heart less than half its regular rhythm as she wobbled erratically, her body not obeying the commands of her mind! She knew she had to get help, but her first step pitched her forward until she came up hard against the bulkhead, her knees giving out. She slapped at the comm panel as her legs gave out completely and she fell to her knees. She looked up at the panel, relieved that the indicator was lit, but as she tried to get closer she toppled over onto her back, her head hitting the deck with a stunning thump.

She didn't have the strength to get up; her body refused to obey her as she felt her heart slowing more and more, the beats becoming languid as she felt a chill pass through her rapidly cooling body. "Qualsia!" She tried to speak, but her lungs did not permit enough force to raise her voice beyond a whisper. "Help!" She called hopelessly, barely able to hear her own voice. "Some one, help me! _Please_!"

She could barely hear herself, and watched with grieving heart as the communication line, not receiving any input in twenty seconds, cycled 'off', the light going out.

"Please! Some one!" She breathed weakly. "Anyone. Help me, please!" She sighed, feeling nothing in her body as a black wave overcame her. The blackness consumed her and she felt nothing any longer, not the cold, not the pain, not even the steady slowing of her heart.


End file.
